Tuesday Thought -- June 3, 2014

Good Morning Friends,

While in Tyre, Paul met with the Christians he found there. “Finding the disciples there, we stayed with them seven days. Through the Spirit they urged Paul not to go on to Jerusalem.” (Acts 21:4)

From Tyre, he moved on to Caesarea and had a similar experience there. “After we had been there a number of days, a prophet named Agabus came down from Judea. Coming over to us, he took Paul’s belt, tied his own hands and feet with it and said, ‘The Holy Spirit says, “In this way the Jews of Jerusalem will bind the owner of this belt and will hand him over to the Gentiles.”' When we heard this, we and the people there pleaded with Paul not to go up to Jerusalem.’” (Acts 21:10-12)

By this time, most of us would have been convinced that God didn’t want us to go on to Jerusalem. A prophet had spoken and two groups of Christians had urged Paul not to go. Both messages came through the agency of the Holy Spirit -- God was talking to these Christians and they were passing the message on to Paul.

However, somewhere the message got garbled! I’d say it wasn’t the message the Holy Spirit gave to the people that was wrong, but how they interpreted His message.

“Then Paul answered, ‘Why are you weeping and breaking my heart? I am ready not only to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.’ When he would not be dissuaded, we gave up and said, ‘The Lord’s will be done.’” (Acts 21:13-14)

What Agabus and the Christians of Tyre and Caesarea heard from God was that Paul would suffer in Jerusalem, that it was dangerous for him to go there. That was a true message, as the next few chapters of Acts will reveal. What those Christians didn’t understand was that God still wanted Paul to go to Jerusalem. Paul understood that, the others didn’t. And, as it turned out, God accomplished amazing things to spread the Gospel through Paul’s imprisonment in Jerusalem and his transfer to Caesarea and then Rome.

It wasn’t that the Christians in Tyre and Caesarea had not heard God, it was that they filtered His message through their own feelings and misread His will. Just an encouragement to us to be sure we not only hear God’s message correctly, but understand how He wants us to respond to it.

His, by Grace,

Steve